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by Moira_Starsong



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Family, Angels, Angels don't understand feelings, Buried Trauma (?), Canon Compliant, Character Study, Emotional Confusion, Emotional awakening, F/M, Fallen Angels, Feels, First Love, Flash Fiction, Gen, Hannah Character Study, Hannistel, Introspection, One Shot, POV Hannah (Supernatural), Rare Pairings, Rare Relationships, Rarepair, Season/Series 10, Survivor Guilt, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 08:42:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16740736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moira_Starsong/pseuds/Moira_Starsong
Summary: Character study of Hannah from early season 10, as she starts to realize her feelings for Castiel are more than friendship.





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**Author's Note:**

  * For [TruthfulNomad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TruthfulNomad/gifts).



The first time that Hannah had met Castiel, she had tried to kill him. She had been wounded, half-mad with pain and grief, the sole survivor of a massacre. Her vessel could barely see. Caroline’s eyes had been bloody and swollen over from the ferocity of Gadreel's attack. Such pain, such deep physical ache in her bones - no, her _vessel's_ bones - was something so new, so shocking. Hannah could have never imagined such blinding pain. She couldn't believe that this was normal existence for humans. How could they stand it?

But Hannah could still sense the divine spark radiating from Castiel, and in her panic she had thought that her attacker, the murderer of her friends, had come back to finish her off. Hannah's not too proud to admit that she had begged for her life, terrified and alone in a room full of the corpses of angels. It hadn't been Gadreel, of course, and Castiel had shown her mercy. He had healed her, although she didn't realize at the time what it had cost him. His borrowed Grace was diminishing, and every time he used it brought him closer to death. Still, he had seen her in pain, and he had healed her.

The Enochian rune on the wall had still pulsed with light, still sent out its siren call. It sounded like Heaven; like peace and order and serenity and light, all the things that this barren wasteland called Earth was _not_. It sounded like home. More than anything, Hannah longed to return home. But after the Fall, the gates of Heaven were locked. No angel could re-enter. She had been banished. As Lucifer had.

Hannah still wondered sometimes why she was still alive. Yes, she was aware that Metatron had ordered Gadreel to leave one angel alive, to spread fear. She knew it was a battle tactic. Hannah was a soldier, she understood battle tactics. What she didn't understand was _Why her?_ Why had Gadreel chosen to let _her_ live? Was it mercy or coincidence? Why, out of all the angels he killed that day, did her brother spare _her_ life? Hannah was a dedicated soldier, but she wasn't an especially powerful or distinctive angel. Why her? The question gnawed at the corners of her mind. Now that Gadreel himself was dead, she supposed she would never know for sure. Hannah found the uncertainty of that …. Disquieting, somehow.

Hannah had felt a pull to Castiel, even then. Even in that room of death, with Metatron's cursed magic on the wall, singing its deceptive song, she had felt a pull to the strange, trenchcoated angel who had saved her. She didn't understand it then. She still didn't, not entirely.

So when Castiel had called the angels together to fight against Metatron, Hannah had been his biggest supporter. Castiel had stood up to Bartholomew's tyranny, had slain Malakai, but he could be merciful. He didn't want angels to slaughter angels, he didn't want endless civil war between countless fractions. He wanted peace. But Metatron with the power of the angel tablet was too much for Castiel to bear. The Scribe of God was the one who had ejected them all from Heaven, shredded their wings, cast them down. Hannah tried not to think about the Fall. It had been the single most terrifying event she had ever experienced. The helplessness, the burning _agony_ of losing her wings….. it could send her into a panic if she thought about it too much. So she didn't. She focused on the mission. The mission always came first, Castiel said. 

Castiel had been forced into leading them by circumstance, Hannah understood that. Over and over he had said that he was no leader; until, suddenly, he was. He had still been her Commander, and she would have died for him. Angels needed a leader, they weren't built for free will. And Hannah had been convinced that the pull coming from where her vessel's heart was located was a sign that Castiel was that destined leader. She still believed that he could be a amazing leader of the angels, the foremost of the Heavenly Host, if he wanted it. But he didn't.

During Castiel's rebellion against Metatron, Hannah had been his most-trusted, his second-in-command. Pride and a strange and foreign warmth had filled her chest when he had picked her. When the suicide bombers who had claimed to be recruited by Castiel had appeared, the righteous wrath that thrummed through her had been shockingly powerful. She didn't understand then why her offense had run so deep, why Metatron's lies had hurt so much. The impudence to soil Castiel's good name, to disgrace the mission, to disgrace _him_. …. It had taken her far too long to understand.

Hannah didn't like Dean Winchester. She knew he was the Righteous Man, who had been destined to stop the Apocalypse. He had done it, but in his own way, not as Michael's sword, as Heaven had planned. More than that, he was Castiel's friend, and Hannah should trust him. But she couldn't find that within herself. Perhaps he had once been kinder, but Hannah had only known him after he had been tainted by the Mark of Cain. The red rage that flowed off of him even when at rest was palpable. She feared he would soon succumb to its taint, and when he did, she feared for Castiel.

Sam was another matter. He seemed genuine, more trustworthy. Technically, Sam was also an abomination, as far as Heaven was concerned, but through no fault of his own. Azazel had fed the youngest Winchester his own demonic blood while Sam was still a babe in the cradle, and Sam was Lucifer's true vessel. But Sam had refused his destiny, had locked Lucifer away, at great personal sacrifice. He had suffered horrific torture at the Devil's hands for his heroism, his demonic blood notwithstanding. So much for the divine plan, the grand story. Free will. That monkey wrench in the works. The nuances of this world still confused Hannah, at times. She longed for the certainty of Heaven.

Hannah had been the one to insist that Castiel punish Dean Winchester, after his Mark-induced rage led him to murder Tessa during a routine interrogation. As their Commander, only Castiel had the right to punish Tessa for taking his name in vain and committing murder. At the time, she had thought that Dean deserved punishment, too. Now, she saw more shades of grey than before, and it made her uncomfortable. She hadn't understood then the sheer hurt that surged through her when Castiel had refused the angelblade she had offered him. He had chosen a human over them, over his own kind ….. over her. She had led the other angels as they walked out on Castiel. They had taken Metatron's deal and been allowed back onto Heaven, back home. There was peace, order, angels had stopped killing each other, and she was home. It was everything she had wanted since the Fall, except for her wings back. So why had it felt so empty?

When Castiel had sat in Heaven's jail after Gadreel had gone to his side, she had come to talk to him, because in her heart, she still believed. She needed to understand. Most of the angels who had returned to Heaven were content, even with Metatron ruling, but Hannah was restless. Something was wrong, she could _sense_ it, but she couldn't go against orders … angels didn't do that. Did they?

Later, After Metatron's defeat, Hannah had returned to Castiel on Earth, not simply because the angels had chosen her to speak with him, but because she had wanted to. Hannah still thought that the Winchesters could both be bad influences on Castiel. It was Dean who had convinced him to rebel in the first place, after all. Castiel insisted that he had made many mistakes, but that wasn't one of them. Hannah didn't understand how Castiel could be so comfortable making his own decisions, without a higher power to give him orders. Angels were not made for free will; that was meant for humans. But Castiel spoke of love, hope, art, dreams. Human things. They weren't supposed to be for angels, for _her_. Hannah couldn't help the pull she felt to Castiel, to all that he spoke of, the vivid blue of his vessel's eyes nearly glowing in the dark, late at night as they drove in the car (such strange, small, confiding things, but without their wings angels had to get around somehow).

Hannah had always struggled with emotions, a flaw that used to fill her with shame. Perhaps she had been down here too long that she no longer automatically perceived feelings as a weakness or a dangerous distraction from the mission. Castiel believed that emotions made him stronger. Now, perhaps Hannah was beginning to believe it, too. Perhaps …… Perhaps her Father had made her this way on purpose. The prospect both exhilarated and terrified her. 

Caroline whispered to her sometimes, at the back of Hannah's mind, and it was Caroline that had helped Hannah to sort out the meaning of her feelings. It was Caroline that had made Hannah face what she really felt for Castiel. Hannah had blamed her at first, blamed her human body’s hormones, embarrassed and angry at the vulnerable and raw humanness of it all. But even as she had insisted, Hannah had known it wasn't true.

Hannah still longed to return home, sometimes. But she was no longer drowning in desperation for it. And humans had started to fascinate her, as strange and incomprehensible as they could be at times. But more than that, she was no longer certain that Heaven _was_ home. Perhaps, home was wherever Castiel was. Hannah's borrowed heart leapt a little at that thought. For now, it was enough. Hannah didn't know about forever anymore. Change happened quickly down here - it was one of the things that she struggled to adjust to, at first. Heaven was constant, unchanging, dependable. But here -- So Hannah can't say about forever.

But for now, Castiel was Hannah's home. And strangely, she found she was content if that never changed. If she had to deal with Metatron to keep his Grace from fading, she would. She’d go to hell and back for him. The realization of what she was willing to do keep Castiel alive should have frightened her, but instead it filled her with a sense of calm and tranquility.

Castiel was not going to die. Hannah wouldn't let him.


End file.
